this is where I leave you, running to a palace made of gold
by MedusaOfTheSpecies
Summary: On the floor of the Chamber, Tom Riddle isn't the only one to die, but Ginny is the only one to live. :: Ginny dies, wakes up in her own version of the empty King's Cross station, and chooses. :: For QLFC Round 9 and the History of Muggles Assignment.


**Written for:**

QLFC Round 9 - Gear Up! Chaser 3, Appleby Arrows. Broom: Write about a witch or wizard gaining freedom.

Prompts: (word) defeated, (word) slate, (song) Stronger - Kelly Clarkson

History of Muggles Class: Write about a someone looking for direction in their life.

Thank you to Jill, Sophy, AJ and Jade for doing a wonderful job editing and helping. You all are amazing!

 **o.O.o**

On the floor of the Chamber, it is not only Tom Riddle who dies.

 **o.O.o**

Ginny wakes up to warm sunlight and an open sky, lying on under an apple tree in the Burrow's open fields with the wind caressing her hair with a lover's touch.

Bill hovers over her, his cheeks sunkissed and a little bit of the skin on his nose peeled away, smiling down fondly.

"What are you doing down there, little sis?" he teases, offering her a hand. "You won't get out of your chores by napping."

"Bill," Ginny tries, but her voice is sore and aching, her head pounding. "Bill, this isn't about my chores; I think I'm dead. I died when Tom used me to—"

Bill shakes his head. "You're not dead, Gin." He grins at her, so bright it eases something in her soul. "It's just a nap. You're resting before you do whatever you have to do. We're Weasleys after all—we don't give up that easily."

Ginny registers, dimly in the back of her mind, that his hand is still reached out between them, and she grabs it, letting him pull her up and hug her close.

"You're going to be fine, little sis," he whispers, pressing a kiss on her forehead the way he did when she was small and he was always there, without an ocean between them. "You're going to be just fine."

She's about to answer, but she can't breathe anymore and she just leans in, trying to hide herself from the outside world before it all fades away.

 **o.O.o**

Percy sits across from her, his books stacked in neat piles. Ginny has cherries in front of her and the moment has a strange haze of nostalgia. She used to split them with him as he talked about Hogwarts, but now she can't remember the last time she really talked to him.

"— and death, Ginevra, it's fascinating," he says, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Did you know you can't escape it?"

It's so typically Percy, exactly the worst thing to say at precisely the wrong time.

"Percy," she whispers, squeezing her eyes shut to stop the tears from leaking. "I don't want to die."

Percy furrows his eyebrow, reaching across to grab her hand and to press a cherry into her mouth before she can continue crying. "But, sister, you're not dead. You're just in between, but he upset the balance of magic."

"And?" she pleads. Her mouth is flooded with the taste of cherries. There is fire boiling in her bones.

Percy's smile is always sharp. "He will die for that."

 **o.O.o**

She doesn't know the girls who sit beside her.

"Ginny," one says softly, reaching over to pull Ginny closer, her own fiery hair mixing in with the other girl's brown locks. "Oh, sister."

"I don't have sisters," Ginny says dumbly, because she _doesn't;_ everyone knows Weasleys only have one girl and six boys, but the two beside her are so familiar, yet the memories hover just outside her reach, a faint tugging to a future she has not yet lived.

"Yet," the blonde one corrects, a faint smile playing at her lips, "we will be sisters soon, _oui_ , Ginevra?"

" _Oui_ ," Ginny replies, and it's more of a habit than an answer because she doesn't know, but the words sound so genuine in her mouth that she grabs both girls' hands and squeezes tightly.

"I can't wait to meet you," Ginny whispers. "I… I've always wanted to have a sister but—"

The girls nod like they understand, and before she can think too hard, she is wrapped up in two pairs of arms, two perfume scents entangling in her mind. It feels like home.

"You will have so many sisters, yes," the blonde one promises, kissing Ginny's cheek. "You will be sick of us."

The nod towards the future makes Ginny shoot up. "How do you know what I choose?" she demands. "Percy said—"

"—that you have a choice," the brown-haired girl finishes, her smile fond at the mention of Percy. "You have a choice, Ginny, yes, but do you _really_ want to die?"

"No." Ginny doesn't even think about it.

"Then I guess we will be seeing you soon," the girl says and the other one winks. "Soon, sister. I love you."

 _I love you too,_ Ginny wants to say, but before she can get the words out, the room fades to black.

 **o.O.o**

Fred stands stiffly beside her, his normally mischievous expression bland. He looks like a caricature of himself, like something he desperately needs is missing.

 _Where is George? Why are you alone? What happened?_ Ginny wants to scream.

"Fred?" she asks hesitantly instead and he turns.

"Ginny," he says, his tone devoid of any emotion. "Promise me you'll live long enough to take care of him."

Ginny's throat tightens in on itself. She cannot breath.

"You die—you can't." Ginny falls to her knees, gasping for air. "Fred—"

"Promise me." He doesn't even look her way.

"I promise," Ginny croaks out, the tears blurring her vision. This time, the world doesn't fade out and she closes her eyes, willing it all away.

 **o.O.o**

She is lying in somebody's lap, a soft hand stroking her hair. Her cheeks are damp, still tear-stained.

Leaning on her elbow, Ginny pushes herself up. The girl whose lap she was just in raises an eyebrow, her lips curving up bitterly.

"You were just talking to Uncle Fred, weren't you?" she notes, pushing her hair off her shoulders.

Ginny stares, noticing the way the light shines on their hair the same way, the way their faces are so alike. There is only one difference. The girl is a miniature copy of Ginny, but her eyes are a vivid shade of emerald, sharp and observant—like Harry's eyes.

"Are you—" Ginny stops. She doesn't know how to ask a stranger if she's her daughter.

"I am," the girl confirms. "Lily Luna Potter—that's me: after your best friend and your husband's mother."

The world spin and Ginny sways. She doesn't understand this.

She isn't married to Harry Potter and she's not dead, but she's not alive and she doesn't have a daughter or sisters and all her brothers are alive and—

She passes out.

 **o.O.o**

When she wakes up, there are two boys beside Lily, their arms wrapped around her as they stare down at Ginny.

"Hi, Mum," one says sadly. "I didn't want to meet you like this." The other boy shrugs. "Actually, I kinda don't mind. It's a good story."

Ginny stares. "Let me guess," she says sarcastically. "James Fred Potter after more dead people and… Gideon Fabian Potter? I don't know many dead people."

Lily laughs uneasily. "No, not quite," she says quietly. "I don't think you want to know their names."

"I don't think I want to either," Ginny agrees. "I just… I'm not ready for all of this."

Lily nods at that, kneeling to level Ginny's sitting at as she grabs her mother's hand.

"Mum," she says tiredly. "I know what's happening right now and you have an option. You could choose to move on and die."

"How?"

Lily sighs. "You grab a broom and leave. You've always dreamed of flying away from everything and well… you have a chance now."

Ginny knows that her daughter isn't lying, but she's twelve and she's so scared and—

"But what'll happen to you?" Ginny asks, biting her lip in anticipation of the answer.

Lily doesn't answer, but her brother does. Ginny's _son._ Just imagining having children scares her.

"We aren't born," he says, his lips twisting up bitterly. "You have a choice."

 **o.O.o**

She does have a choice and it's made of her brothers faces and her future children's voices and of two girls who will one day be her family.

"I've chosen," Ginny tells her children.

The shorter boy answers. "See you soon then, Mum."

 **o.O.o**

Ginny wakes up to a chill so cold it freezes her bones and Harry Potter's voice. The memories of people—she can't remember who they are, just that they were her own—are fading, leaving nothing but the faint tingle of sunlight on her skin and a fond smile of a person she can't recall.

"Ginny," Harry says urgently, his voice pleading. "Are you awake?"

Ginny coughs, her throat aching. "Yes."

Ron and Harry exchange looks so relieved that it makes Ginny homesick for something that doesn't even exist.

She wants to thank them, but her head is so heavy that she leans down on Harry's shoulder, falling right asleep.

 **o.O.o**

Ginny wakes up to her entire family crowded around. It feels strange, to be able to live after death. She has never felt more free, unburdened. There is no blood on her hands.

 **o.O.o**

She never remembers the day she died in its entirety. Harry and Ron fill in pieces together, but it still feels like a empty story, like a house of cards just about to crumble.

But it's the summer of fifth year that she gets it, because Bill brings home a girl with a haughty smile and proud eyes.

Ginny swallows back her pride. Every bone in her body is screaming to wrap her arms around the girl like a long lost sibling and to never let go.

"Hi, Fleur," she says kindly, ignoring the way her mother bristles in the back. "I'm Ginny." Feeling slightly daring, she lets the words drop from her mouth. "You know, I've always wanted a sister."

And Fleur, whose smiles are a little too sharp and whose teeth gleam predatorily, widens her eyes in surprise.

"Hello, Ginny," she says slowly, her accent colouring her words. "I have a sister already, oui, but I wouldn't mind another."

Ginny does not like metaphors because they are a sharp reminder of Tom's sickly sweet words but—

There are puzzle pieces putting themselves back together in her heart.

 **o.O.o**

Ginny knows a lot of things about Tom. He is sugary sweet lies and poison wrapped under illusions and he is a man who heard of gods and mocked them.

He is a contradiction, he was her best friend, he is a liar and he is a thief but, in moments and breaths, Ginny Weasley steals herself back.

 **o.O.o**

When Tom's body hits the floor, Ginny stares, enraptured.

What a fitting way to die, so utterly mortal, for a man convinced he could bend the universe to his command.

 **o.O.o**

After it all, Ginny sits beside her family. Her mother is fussing over Charlie; Bill and Fleur are curled into each other as they whisper; Percy is sitting beside George, blabbering to fill the emptiness as her father watches.

Harry, Ron and Hermione sit at Ginny's feet, a mess of scattered limbs and tangled hair. On Ginny's shoulder, Luna is fast asleep as she mumbles soft words in her sleep. Neville taps his foot uneasily and Ginny wills this to be the lowest point she will ever have in her life.

She cannot survive worse. She is still not free.

 **o.O.o**

She is not ready to be pregnant any of the three times. Hermione claims it was easier with Hugo, but for Ginny, it only gets harder. Every child is bloodier and more painful, and it is not only the birth.

 **o.O.o**

James is the easiest; he's healthy for his age, but Ginny aches for months after.

"James Sirius," she tells the nurse. "After two heroes."

The nurse smiles, scribbling the name down, and Ginny swears she catches a glimpse of a dark-haired boy with his eyes twinkling, his gaze mischievous as he ducks out of the room.

 **o.O.o**

Albus is worse: blood, so much blood she retches upon seeing it, clutching Harry's hand like a lifeline.

"I'm not sure about the name," she says numbly, still scarred from the images burned into the eyelids.

"Albus Severus," Harry suggests, his voice solemn, "after two survivors."

Ginny glances down at the boy, so frail and small in her arms. There is a legacy associated to those two names, but it is one she has a feeling, deep in her bones, that the boy will be able to bear.

"Okay."

 **o.O.o**

Lily barely lives, over a month premature and so weak they spend the next two months in the hospital.

"You got lucky," the nurse says honestly, on one long night that stretches and stretches.

Ginny thinks of her tiny daughter, thinks of saints like a woman who died for her son and Luna, her best friend, who prayed to entities not of this world for her goddaughter.

"What are you thinking about, Gin?" Harry asks and Ginny smiles at him, eternally fond.

"Her name—it's Lily Luna."

Harry gazed at the tiny child in his arms, a girl that Ginny somehow knows will grow to be a fighter and explorer, a mother and a hero.

"Yes," he says distractedly, his eyes focused on Lily. "You're right."

 **o.O.o**

It is on the night death claims her for good, that she remembers everything about her near brush with the afterlife.

"How do you feel?" Lily asks. Everyone left in the Weasley and Potter families, blood-related or honorary, is crowded in the Saint Mungo's room.

Ginny thinks. She thinks of nights with a family she thought she'd never get, of the first time George laughed after Fred's death, of flying so high the stars seemed reachable, of so much love it all blurs.

She is tired. Many years have passed. She has accomplished everything Tom had told her that she could never do.

"Free," she whispers, planting a kiss of the nearest forehead beside her. "I feel free."

At the old age of ninety-six, surrounded by family, Ginny Potter dies.


End file.
